Eurovision Throwback: Gaitana – Be My Guest

Ukraine in Eurovision seem to have two extremes: powerful, emotion evoking songs, and on the other end of the scale is the punchy, in your face pop anthems which are very much OTT. I could give you one guess as to where Gaitana’s 2012 Eurovision entry fits in that scale. Yep, you guessed right, this is a punchy pop number!

The song immediately catches your attention, and as you see Gaitana walk out onto stage, you can tell she is a very confident artist. Her voice is incredibly powerful, however the issue I have with this song is just how two dimensional it is. From the beginning, it is punchy, but there’s no real break from this within the entire 3 minutes. The music does quieten down during the verses, but her voice maintains that real power. Undoubtedly, there is a LOT of repetition in this song, as if it’s a 30 second song multiplied, and unfortunately for me, I’m just a bit bored of it after that first 30 seconds.

As I mentioned before, Gaitana is an incredibly confident and powerful artist, and she is flawless throughout the entire performance. Saying that, I think the song could have been reworked to build more over the 3 minutes. I think her vocal ability could have been showcased in an upbeat pop ballad rather than a cheap dance song. Saying that, this musical style has an audience, and Eurovision fans are usually exactly that audience.

As for the staging, I also think they missed a really great opportunity here to do something a little more modern and classy. The way Gaitana is dressed (which is beautifully, may I add) doesn’t quite match with mismatched bright colours in the screens behind her. I like the idea of having human like figures in the back to make it look like there are many people on stage but I just hate the colouring – which seems like such a weird thing to dislike, but it distracts me, and not in a positive way. I also don’t really understand the colourful kilt like situation on the backing dancers. I think it would have been more beneficial to select a few complementing colours and focus on creating a colourful but not clashing stage performance.

Overall, I can’t say I enjoy this song, or performance. In terms of stage performances, it’s probably one of my least favourite performances from recent Eurovision memory. As much as it is a great song to get people up and dancing, for me it’s just a filler song, meaning it doesn’t really do much in the results department. To be honest, I’m surprised it ended up in 15th spot..,

As such, I’m going to give this song a 3/10. It just doesn’t do anything for me.